Danny Boyle Strikes (Out) Again!

Rating: 1/10 (30 April 2008)

This may be close to blasphemy (especially since I'm British), but why do people like Danny Boyle films? The only reason I can see is that, although they're British, they're relatively professional-looking.
The characters are almost invariably stick people, badly defined and never straying from the definition they're given when they first appear.
The exciting stuff (a corpse, some smack or a bunch of red-eyed crazies) is always presented in such a way that it's obviously intended to be clever, even when it patently isn't.
I actually agree with many of the common complaints about this movie. There wasn't much action - which is fine if you're making a horror flick, but it's not scary. Or a character drama, but the characters are laughable (unless they're played by Christopher Ecclestone, and then only because Ecclestone rocks). Or a gore flick, but there wasn't any.
The ending is facile, and the re-made ending is just a joke.
I payed 50p for this on second hand VHS, but I still felt like I wasted my money.
All your Brits out there who loved this, be honest -- did you give it a few bonus points for being British? Or more than a few...? This is maybe fun if you're new to the horror genre, but it's hardly a worthy successor to the classics by Romero or Cronenberg which have dealt much more powerfully (and originally) with similar themes.
So, instead of watching this, go rock "Shivers" or "Night of the Living Dead" - even the debut films of these two great directors can dish out a weighty slap to this substanceless piece of cheap nonsense.